Galbadian Trail
by Riha Hyesthae
Summary: Three yoke of oxen, his wife, and five children. He must be mad, but everyone was Prairie Mad these days. A tract of land payable in a successful farm was hard to say no to. So Cid collected his family and everything else that would fit in the covered wagon and headed West.


So this is all Luna_Manar's fault. Plotbunnies spawned from this Tumblr post. I am not sorry.

NPC: Cid and Edea

Party: Squall, Quistis, Zell, Selphie, Irvine

* * *

Three yoke of oxen, his wife, and five children. He must be mad, but everyone was Prairie Mad these days. A tract of land payable in a successful farm was hard to say no to. So Cid collected his family and everything else that would fit in the covered wagon and headed West.

**Zell has a snakebite**

"Ma, look!"

Edea shrieked at the sight of her son with a snake in hand. "Zell! Put that viper down!"

"Aw ma, he's no viper! He's only a garter snake or something like that."

"Put it down! It'll bite!"

"No, he likes me, see? OW!" Zell shook his hand, viper still attached, until it let go and sailed into the tall grass lining the trail. Edea rushed to his side and slit his finger with her sewing scissors, sucking at the wound and spitting out the blood. Zell's eyes welled up and he bit his lip, but he didn't cry.

"Now what did I tell you?" she scolded, wrapping his finger in a bit of scrap linen.

"I'm sorry, Ma."

* * *

**Irvine has broken his leg**

"Don't wander too far, son!" Cid called.

"But there's _rabbits!_" Irvine insisted. "Bet I could pick one off, sell the pelt at the next stop. Or Ma could make herself a collar."

Cid repressed a sigh with some effort. "You get back here and stay on the trail. No telling what's hid in that tall grass."

"Oh Pa, it's _fine_," Irvine groaned, shouldering his rifle. "I know what' I'm do-" He cut off in a blood-curdling scream. The rifle fell from his hands and discharged with a shattering _CRACK_ that was almost loud enough to drown out the clang of the steel trap that had just snapped his leg near clean in two.

Cid reigned the oxen to as swift a halt as he could manage and hopped down from the wagon seat. Edea was already at Irvine's side, doing her best to quiet him.

"Stay back!" he barked at the other children as they moved to follow. "Squall, you mind the oxen. Quistis, fetch the medicine bag. Zell, Selphie, you two clear a space in the wagon and bring the extra break."

A chorus of "yessir"s went barely noticed.

"Pa," Irvine sobbed, holding tight to his mother. "I'm sorry, Pa. I didn't see it. I'm sorry…"

"Hush," Cid told him. A clean break, no visible splinters. Plenty of blood, though. Quickly, he yanked off his belt and pulled it tight just below his son's knee. After a minute or so, the blood slowed. Good. "Edea?"

"Shhh," she soothed, rolling up her handkerchief and putting it between Irvine's teeth. With her other hand, she drew her shawl over his face. "Just be still. It'll be over soon."

Irvine whimpered and held on. He couldn't completely choke back a scream as Cid released the trap. More blood coursed, but the wound looked clean. It wasn't easy setting the bone. Irvine's strangled cries had faded by the time Cid had uncorked a potion and poured it over the wound. He'd have a scar, but he'd walk. Not right away, of course, but at least he wouldn't be lame.

"He's fainted," Edea said, assisting in lifting Irvine's inert, lanky body.

"That's probably for the best," Cid said, maneuvering Irvine into the crowded wagon. "Quistis, you mind your brother. Tell us if he wakes, or gets worse."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

**Zell has dysentery, Zell has cholera, Selphie has cholera, Irvine has cholera**

The children had been thirsty, so they'd filled up at the last stream. It had run clear enough despite being little more than a trickle through the larger trench of a mostly dry riverbed. Not long after, Zell had jumped from the wagon and run into the brush.

"Zell?" Edea called after him.

"Just the call of nature, Ma!"

"Sakes," she huffed. "Hurry on, then."

"Yes, Ma."

That night, she woke up to the sound of retching. Zell and Selphie stood at the edge of the camp, holding each other up as they vomited into the dust.

"Sakes alive, what's happened?" she demanded, coming over to feel their foreheads. "You're both hot as coals!"

Urgently she wracked her brain for what could have caused this. They'd all eaten the same food, so it wasn't that. The only thing she could think of was the water. They'd boiled it for coffee and stew, but the younger children had drunk straight from the stream.

Irvine, still unsteady on his healed leg, crawled over to them and retched into the brush as well. Only Squall and Quistis slept on, undisturbed. They'd both had coffee with the adults. Perhaps they would be spared.

* * *

**Quistis has typhoid**

"Cid? Did you eat the last of that stew?"

"No, dear. Why?"

"I was going to say to throw it out. After a week, it's probably gone off."

"...I finished it, Ma," Quistis said, nervous. "It smelled alright. Didn't want it to go to waste, and there wasn't much left."

"I'm sure it was fine, dear," Edea assured her.

It wasn't. Quistis spent the rest of the day leaning over the back of the wagon, heaving the spoiled stew into the dust. Despite getting rid of it, she burned with fever for another three days.

"I'm sorry, Ma," she mumbled.

Edea smoothed back Quistis' sweaty golden hair. "No dear, _I'm_ sorry."

* * *

**Irvine has measles, Selphie has measles**

The last town had boasted hot meals and a hotel. What they hadn't mentioned was the measles epidemic that had only just passed. Both Edea and Cid had had measles when they were small, as had Squall and Quistis. The younger three, however…

Edea sighed and shook her head when spots appeared on Selphie and Irvine. It would have had to happen sooner or later. A trek across country wasn't an ideal time to be sick, but there was nothing to be done. At least once they were on the other side of their illness, they'd be safe. Measles took the very old and the very young, and all her children were strong and healthy. They'd be fine. She hoped.

* * *

**Zell is lost (1 day), Quistis has a broken arm**

"I have _had_ it with you and your reptiles!" Quistis shouted, whacking her brother over the head with her sunbonnet.

"Ow! I said I was sorry!"

"I climb down a ridge to rescue your dumb behind, rip my best petticoat and break my blasted arm to do it! I thought you'd have broken a leg, or worse, your fool head!"

"I _said_ I was sorry!"

"You wandered off and it took me all day to find you!"

"_I'm sorry!_"

"Well you should be!" She pulled him into a hug as best she could, then seized him by the ear and began to pull him up the ridge. "Idiot. Glad you're alive, though."

"...thanks."

* * *

**Quistis has dysentery**

"I'm sorry," Zell repeated.

Quistis waved him off and sat down heavily, clutching her stomach with one hand.

"My own fault. I drank from strange water without boiling it first."

"It was a long climb back up the hill, and you with a broken arm. I shoulda carried you or somethin'."

Quistis shrugged. "Nothin' wrong with my legs."

"Yeah, but you got sick 'cause of me."

"Just do me a favor and don't go chasing any more snakes."

Zell grinned. "I won't."

* * *

**Zell gets lost (2 days), Zell has measles**

When Quistis did not improve, Zell went to find medicinal herbs. He knew what to look for. Pa might harp on him to pay attention, but there was just _so much_ to think about! He did pay attention to all sorts of things no one else did. Sometimes he even paid attention to what people actually wanted him to pay attention to. Either way, Zell knew what he was looking for. The only problem was, he didn't know if the plants grew around here. Before long, the forest had closed around him and he didn't know where he was.

Eventually, someone found him. A girl around his own age with shiny black braids and a doeskin dress took him back to her family. Zell didn't speak native, and they didn't understand him, so he drew a picture in charcoal on a bit of bark. Her Pa set the drawing aside, evidently impressed while her Ma took dried herbs down from the rafters of their home. Zell did his best to thank them; gave the girl the shiny stone he'd found in the river along with his slingshot- he could make another- before trying to find his way back.

Ma scolded him and so did Pa, but it was worth it. Quistis got better. Zell, however, didn't feel so good.

"Someone must have had measles in their village," Edea remarked, tucking him in. "I'm only surprised you didn't catch it right off from Irvine and Selphie."

"I'm sorry, Ma."

"No dear, don't be sorry," Edea smiled kindly. "You only wanted to help your sister, and I'll not scold you for that."

* * *

**Raft hits a rock, Selphie and Quistis drown**

"We should wait," Edea said, eyeing the swollen river. "It's too high."

"It's too deep to ford," Cid agreed, "but a raft should be fine. It'll be alright."

"I don't know…"

Cid and the boys cut logs and lashed them together. The wagon stood steady enough, though the oxen were nervous. Edea did her best to shush them. Cid and the boys each stood at a corner of the raft, pole in hand, slowly edging it toward the opposite bank.

"Squall!" Cid shouted.

The splash echoed a half-beat later as Squall tumbled off the raft. His corner rose above the river, tipping the rest of the improvised craft higher and higher as it turned in the current. Cid abandoned his corner to try to push the raft off the rock that lurked beneath the surface. Without his weight, the raft overbalanced and capsized.

"Edea!" Cid gasped when his head broke the surface. "Boys! Girls!"

"Pa!" that was Squall, far downriver but on the opposite shore. Cid paddled to keep his head above water, casting madly for the rest of his family. "EDEA! GIRLS! ANSWER ME!"

"Cid!" Edea clung to the wagon, now floating on its side. Cid made his way over to her.

"Let go and I'll pull you to shore."

"But the wagon!"

"There's a turn in the river, we'll pull it in later. Where's the girls?"

"I don't know!"

"We'll find them," he promised.

They never did.

Irvine and Zell made it to shore, wet and cold and shaken. Of the girls, they could find no trace. Three days they searched the riverbank, more than a mile in each direction, but not so much as a scrap of pink or yellow calico could they find.

"They could swim," Zell kept insisting, even as tears rose in his eyes. "I don't understand. They could _swim!_"

_Not in eighteen pounds of wet petticoats,_ Cid thought emptily. In the end, all they could do was hammer two rough hewn posts with the girls' names into the river bank. Perhaps they'd see them again, but in his heart, Cid knew better.

* * *

**Arrive at Galbadia**

Part of seven to party of five, both girls gone. It wasn't the same without them. He had twenty acres to his name, but his girls would never come back. It seemed to high a price for a cabin, a barn, and plowed fields. The boys got on alright, but they'd grown up that day, and weren't truly boys any longer. Squall found himself a wife not long after, though he'd never seemed the type. Cid wondered if on some level he wasn't a little bit lonesome for his sisters. Rinoa was a nice little thing, even if her daddy thought only God himself was better than he.

Edea had been quiet ever since. Not melancholy, per se, but certainly down-hearted. When there were enough children, a school opened and she applied to teach. Not till then did she start to smile again.

They had their own land, their own home, a new daughter-in-law, but some days Cid still wondered:

Was it worth it?

He didn't know.


End file.
